These days, it's easy to heap praise on our favourite stars - platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram means we can share when we are enjoying a new album by our favourite singer, whether we really identified with an actress' new film, or how we felt about the book we've just finished in moments.

But even in the days of instant communication, there is still nothing like a letter to give a personal touch. And few people seem to know this better than authors. JK Rowling's recent letter in the guise of Dumbledore to a fan who had survived a school shooting won her praise for the amount of care put into the message.

A recently emerged letter from Roald Dahl showed him giving advice to a student who had sent him an A-level creative writing project. The advice could be seen as harsh, but the fan believes that it taught him an important lesson early on. Other fan letters have inspired the correspondents to become authors, or simply provided a message of help for those who had written to their idols in an hour of need.

With that in mind, we have rounded up a series of some of our favourite responses from authors to their fans. Scroll down to see the whole list:

F Scott Fitzgerald

The most endearing and charming letters from famous authors to their fans